282 
THROUGH THE BERGS. 
those generally met with in Baffin’s Bay,—less worn, 
and bluei - , and looking in all respects like the face ot 
the Grand Glacier. Many were rectangular, some of 
them regular squares, a quarter of a mile each way; 
others, more than a mile long. 
They could not see more than a sliip’s-lengtli ahead, 
the icebergs were so unusually close together. Old 
icebergs bulge and tongue out below, and are thus pre¬ 
vented from uniting; but these showed that they were 
lately launched, for they approached each other so 
nearly that the party were sometimes forced to squeeze 
through places less than four feet wide, through which 
the dogs could just draw the sledge. Sometimes they 
could find no passage between two bergs, the ice being 
so crunched up between them that they could not force 
their way. Under these circumstances, they would 
either haul the sledge over the low tongues of the 
berg, or retrace their steps, searching through the 
drift for a practicable road. 
This they were not always fortunate in finding, and 
it was at best a tedious and in some cases a dangerous 
alternative, for.oftentimes they could not cross them; 
and, when they tried to double, the compass, their 
only guide, confused them by its variation. 
It took them a long while to get through into 
smoother ice. A tolerably wide passage would appear 
between two bergs, which they would gladly follow; 
then a narrower one; then no opening in front, but 
one to the side. Following that a little distance, a 
blank ice-cliff would close the way altogether, and they 
